


after a while and a thousand miles

by theodorelupin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Depressed Steve Rogers, Flashbacks, Gen, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Up all night to get Bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 00:32:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11886150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theodorelupin/pseuds/theodorelupin
Summary: There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each otherand driving cross country to save your ex-best friend from the past who is now a serial killer is one of them.





	after a while and a thousand miles

_“Bucky.”_

Steve’s eyes fluttered open, just for a second. The world looked subdued, soft and blurry, through his lashes. Out of the corner of his eyes, black boots fled the area, leaving perfect imprints in the mud of the river bank. Steve urged his body to stand, he demanded it, but his body didn’t listen. His lips moved soundlessly, mouthing over and over again, _“Bucky.”_

His eyes slid closed against his will, and the image of the Winter Soldier slipped from his brain with his consciousness. He did not dream. 

-

When Steve woke again he was in Sam Wilson’s bed. 

He jerked awake, squinting his eyes against the harsh sunlight pouring out of the window. He glanced around diligently, heart pounding in spite of him, ready for another fight. 

That’s when Sam strolled in, clad in sweatpants and bandages across his abdomen. “You know you sure know how to give a guy a heart attack, Rogers.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“You took a pretty good beating out there- how you holding up?”

Steve glanced down at purple bruises blooming on his skin and winced. “Fine. Where’s Nat?”

“Gone. Without a trace, shortly after the fight.”

“Do we- do we know she’s okay though?”

“Yeah, I think she’s alright. Left this for proof.” Sam handed Steve a small piece of paper. 

He glanced at it, cautiously. A series of numbers were scrawled at the top…..and below the numbers, in Nat’s perfect cursive- _“What about Clint’s friend, Su-”_ Steve crumpled the paper in his fist with a small smile and rolled his eyes before tossing it into a nearby trash can. 

Steve sat the rest of the way up, a look of determination coming across his face. 

“Damn. I know that look. What’s going on inside your brain, Steve Rogers?”

“I need to find him.”

“Find who?”

“Bucky.” Steve said, the softness of his voice contrasting with the hard, set lines of his face. 

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay, I’m in.”

Steve grimaced. “Sam, you don’t need to-”

“I know I don’t need to. I want to. And besides. You can’t do this alone. Someone’s gotta keep your sorry ass out of trouble.”

The two men shared a look, and Steve’s shoulders slumped, relieved from a weight he did not know he was carrying. 

“Alright. Where should we start?”

“I think that’s your call to make, Captain. I’m just the wingman.”

-

That’s how they found themselves cruising down back roads in a rental car that Sam pointedly said he did _not_ want to know how Steve had acquired. 

Steve had managed to track down Natasha through her burner phone, and despite her mysterious disappearance, she did not appear to be avoiding them, and she answered on the first try. 

“Hey, grandpa. I thought I ditched you back at the old folks’ home.”

There was the distant sound of skin hitting metal, and the stomping of feet. Nat’s breathing was slightly labored on the other line, though her tone was cheery. Or well, as cheery as Nat ever got. 

“Are you- are you on a mission right now?”

“Look, I’m sure you’re not calling to hear all about my boring life-” There was the distinct crunch of a nose being broken. “Hang on a sec.”

Steve tapped his foot, and whistled to himself, trying hard not to let the sound of gunshots bother him. Sam gave him a questioning look, to which Steve mouthed, _“I’m on hold.”_

“And, we’re back.” Nat’s voice came through the tiny phone speaker, sounded ragged but not displeased. 

“If this is a bad time, I can ca-”

“Spill it, Rogers.”

“Sam and I are gonna...We want to try to track down Bucky.”

For a brief moment, there was silence on the other end. 

“You’re marching into a world of trouble, Steve.”

“I know. It’s gonna be hard, but if you’re going to try to talk me out of it, I-”

“I said it was going to be trouble, not that I didn’t approve.”

He smiled at that. 

“So, what do you need to know?”

A week later, a package was slipped into Sam’s mailbox. HYDRA files. And then, they were off. Sam behind the wheel, and Steve in the passenger seat, flipping through the pages, as they sailed down the street, headfirst into nowhere. 

-

In between strategy talk, Sam focused on his own mission. Operation: Get To Know Steve Rogers (and also Make Sure Steve is Okay and Are You Serious? This Guy Has Got To Have the Worst PTSD Of Anyone Ever). 

Steve didn’t like to be distracted from the mission. Operation: Save Bucky Barnes From Himself (and also Fuck Hydra). Or, he acted like he didn’t want to be distracted, but he still laughed at Sam’s jokes, and answered his dumb questions. And that was proof that maybe, even after all of this, there was hope for Steve Rogers. 

“What’s your favorite color?”

“What?” Steve mumbled, not looking up from the papers he had to have near-memorized by now.

“You heard me. What’s your favorite color? That’s like, the most basic thing you learn about a person.”

 

Steve considered it for a moment before saying, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Before the serum...I was colorblind. And after, I guess I didn’t have a lot of time to spend thinking about things like that.”

“Well, think about it right now.”

Steve thought about all the colors he’d seen in his life. The vibrant red of Natasha’s hair, standing out in battle, as he tried to keep an eye out for her,the same red as Peggy’s favorite lipstick. The sickly green color of Bruce’s faces as the Hulk slowly started to take his body from him. Bucky’s eyes, that green-blue color that shocked him the first time he’d seen them after the serum. He thought about the white of the ice as he steered the plane right into. White. Never-ending, unrelenting, staring right at him, and everything he’d ever done....

Steve shook his head. “Blue.” He said finally. “I like blue.”

Sam nodded. 

“Okay….first kiss?”

“What?” Steve squeaked, looking at Sam with disbelief before letting a laugh escape his throat. “What kind of question is that?”

“A fun one. Now, c’mon. Who was the lucky lady that got to kiss America’s Favorite Hunk, Steve Rogers?”

As Steve rolled his eyes, a memory washed over him. 

-

__

_“You can’t be serious.”_

_“You don’t gotta poke fun, Buck. It’s not my fault that I’m five-foot-nothing and can’t sweet talk a dame to save my life.”_

_“I’m not making fun of ya, I’m just...You’ve really never had your first kiss?”_

_“The dames aren’t exactly linin’ up. It takes two people to kiss, ya know, Bucky.”_

_Bucky considers this for a moment. The two of them sit in silence on the curb outside Bucky’s apartment. They’re fourteen, and Bucky, having just grown into his once too-big ears and slowly starting to become less gangly and more broad-shouldered, is the apple of all the young girls’ eyes. Steve, on the other hand, has barely grown in years, his eyes are sunken in slightly, with big purple crescent moons permanently etched into his face, messy blond hair sprouting up from the top of his head._

_“Does it bother you?” He finally says, biting his lip with an apologetic look towards his best friend._

_“A little,” Steve mutters. “Not much though. It’s not like I wanted to kiss any of them anyways. It just bothers me that I don’t know what it’s like. Everyone talks about it like it’s this big, amazing thing, and I just… wish I knew.”_

_“I didn’t really wanna kiss any o’ them, either.” Bucky admits, with a sheepish glance._

_“What do you mean?” Steve looks alarmed. “You’ve kissed loads of dames.”_

_“Yeah, but…” Bucky hesitates. “I mean. It didn’t mean nothing. Kissing’s fun and all, but it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, why would I even wanna be with those shallow dames who wouldn’t even give my best pal the time of day?”_

_Steve blushes, looking touched, and Bucky’s cheeks bloom in pink a moment later, his hand coming up the rub the back of his neck._

_“Ya know, Stevie...If it really bothers you so much, not having your first kiss and all...I could...I could kiss you.” He whispers this last part, glancing around, before hanging his head down, eyes locked firmly onto a can that’s been kicked out onto the road._

_“Wha-”_

_“It wouldn’t be weird or nothin’! Just so...Just so you could see for yourself what it was like. Like ya said.”_

_“Yeah, alright.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_Steve nodded, gulping down a large swallow, his palms collecting sweat again the pavement. Bucky leaned forward, and…_

__

-

“-eve. Steve? Hello? Reminiscing about beautiful women from long ago?”

Steve snaps out of it, shaking his head lightly. “Back in my day…” He starts, jokingly, putting one hand on his hip. Sam rolls his eyes with a small smile. Steve continues, “I actually wasn’t _hunky_ at all. I was just...a skinny kid from Brooklyn. Weren’t exactly tons of girls beating down my door for the chance to kiss bruised-up, tiny little Steve Rogers…”

“Alright, alright. But there had to be someone, right?”

“Yeah. We were fourteen. They were...a friend of mine. It didn’t mean nothing. Just...kids.”

Sam nodded, eyes trained on the road. “My first kiss was on Nicole Erikson. We were in the third grade.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked, eyebrows raised. “I’m sure it was love at first sight.”

“Yeah, well she broke up with me the next day for saying that strawberry milk was gross. She truly was the one that got away. I’m heartbroken to this day.”

“She thought strawberry milk tasted like anything other than cough syrup? She didn’t deserve you.”

The two men share a look and matching grins. A moment of companionable silence passes before Sam starts back up on his never ending game of 20 Questions. 

“So...favorite song?”

-

Steve’s least favorite part of the day is stopping at the motels for sleep. 

When they’re actually tracking down the Hydra cells, Steve feels alive. He feels purposeful. He finally feels in control. They make minimal progress. But something is better than nothing. 

And even just being on the road- it’s an unavoidable step. At least he feels like they’re working towards something. 

But at night, everything is still. There are no mile markers to count, no abandoned buildings to search, no leftover Hydra agents to pummel into the ground. Just him, and Sam, and his thoughts, the three of them stuffed into cheap motel rooms. 

Sam and Steve always end up this way- laying flat on their backs on the floor in between the two double beds. 

“This is so stupid. Why do we even stop at motels if we’re just gonna lay on the floor and pretend to sleep?”

“Hey, it’s the thought that counts. I’m at least trying to make progress towards actually using a bed again. Baby steps! Maybe one of these days I’ll drag a pillow down to the floor with me.”

Steve lets out a huff of air. 

“And besides, girls don’t exactly like it when I crawl out of their beds at night and pass out next to their nightstand.”

At that, Steve loses it, and Sam follows a suit a moment later. The two of them lay giggling, hopeless boys on the floor of a dirty motel room. 

When the moment ends, silence falling upon them, Sam looks Steve in the eye, faces close enough to feel the little breaths making their way in and out of their mouths. 

“Steve- you know. When this is all said and done. Even if we find him...he might not be…”

“He might not be Bucky. I know.”

“ _Do_ you know? I need to make sure that you not falling apart isn’t hinged on finding this guy.”

“Look, Sam. I made my peace with losing Bucky when I saw him fall into the ice over 70 years ago. This is just… If there’s even a chance I can get him back, I need to try.”

“I know. And...if he...if he isn’t…”

“I just gotta know. I don’t care if he’s brainwashed. Or if he doesn’t remember me. Or if he doesn’t want anything to do with me. I have to know he’s gonna be okay. At least, a little bit. He’s all I got.”

“Steve, that’s not-”

“No, no, I know. I have you, and Nat, and the other Avengers. And I love you all, I really do. But Bucky… I woke up in this century alone and confused. And I know that I should love it here. I should love that everything is so _easy_ now, and things are so much better. But god, I miss home. I miss the soldiers I fought with. I miss Brooklyn. 

And Brooklyn’s still there but it’s not really Brooklyn anymore. Not the way I remember it. And Peggy… She’s a real blessing, but, and god this hurts like a bitch to say, but she’s not gonna be around for much longer. 

And I just miss home. And nothing’s ever been home to me the way that Bucky was. 

And if I have even a fraction of a chance of getting to have that again, well… I’d move mountains for him.”

Steve nodded, letting out a little sigh. 

“I’m right here with you, man.”

“Goodnight, Sam.”

“Goodnight, Steve.”

Sam rolled over on his side. 

Steve continued to stare at the ceiling, and prayed for a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> More chapters to come soon.


End file.
